I'm currently on the Spotify 3 month (almost free) subscription, just to try it out for curiosities sake, really.Being curious, I thought to see who was popular in the ambient world (on Spotify) and I found some artists I'd never heard of with millions of plays on some of the more 'sleep / relaxing' type playlists. Then I read this article.

Still don't really know what to make of Spotify (ethically), but it's nice to track down some interesting stuff. I don't think I would subscribe at a tenner a month though, I don't really listen to enough music to warrant that.

Be interesting to see how it holds up over time, specially in the light of recent rumours about Soundcloud.

If Spotify is behind this, or are letting these fake artist take over their service, it will probably end up killing itself off. In a way it kind of reminds me of myspace. At one point it was the place to be, but then the owners got greedy and put so many ads up that it was a waste of time to even attempt to go on it anymore. People will figure out it's nothing but a scam of fake artists and they will stop going.

It's not good but I don't think it can kill the service. For a service this big, this is a fairly small issue and doesn't affect that many people. As long as people can find their favorite music there, they'll still use it.

If anything it seems to be expanding. I don't really see any comparison with social media sites, but (apparently) the playlist thing is a significant thing on Spotify - get on a known playlist and you'll get lots of listeners.

Like it or not (and I'm still not sure what to make of it), it's a sign of the times, when sites like this were once a hotbed of activity, it appears the activity is going on elsewhere.

Back on topic, I still think making up 'fake artists' is extremely bogus.